‘Not an elite sport’: Golf Week in Singapore to showcase appeal to all

IT’S getting tougher for golfers in Singapore to enjoy the sport, with more courses set to shut in the coming months.

The Marina Bay Golf Course, a picturesque public course at Tanjong Rhu that opened 17 years ago, will soon be closed to make way for a residential development next June.

The lease for the Champions Public Golf Course (previously known as Green Fairways) expires in December, while that of the Mandai Executive Public Golf Course will end in 2024.

With the impending closures, the only “public course” left will be Keppel Sime, which has a 60:40 public-to-member slot availability.

Since December 2016, when there were 24 courses, seven have shut or are due to close soon.

Not to be deterred, the Singapore Golf Association (SGA) – the governing body of golf here – said it is trying its best to ensure that the local golf population does not dwindle further, but in fact will even increase over time.

With the support of NTUC Club, SGA is organising a Golf Week starting on Monday (Nov 13), with a slew of events that aims to raise awareness of golf and boost the sport’s popularity.

One event is the Asia Golf Convention, where industry leaders and sports officials from Asia will gather at the Singapore Island Country Club to share insights on topics such as agronomy, sustainability and mental wellness.

The inaugural President’s Cup will be held on Wednesday at the Orchid Country Club to recognise stakeholders in the golf ecosystem, and raise funds through the One Team Singapore Fund.

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This fund was created to enhance the high-performance sports system for national athletes, with the government matching contributions dollar for dollar. The proceeds from the event will go towards supporting SGA’s high-performance initiatives to support athletes and golfers in their sports development.

The President’s Cup is the first in a series of tournaments that Singapore will host in the next couple of years. The Putra Cup will be held here in 2024, while the World Amateur Team Championships will come to town in 2025.

Golf Week will wrap up with a fiesta this weekend at Keppel Club and Downtown East, with golf-themed activities to help push the message that golf is for the masses and far from being an elite sport.

Through this partnership with SGA, NTUC Club will offer golfers who do not have a membership at a private club the opportunity to pay subsidised rates to play at selected clubs.

NTUC Club also wants to grow the membership base of its My Golf Kaki community, which currently stands at about 7,000, with a focus on roping in new and younger golfers from schools and the institutes of higher learning. In total, there are about 80,000 active golfers in Singapore today, with half of them having a club membership.